If the IMF is truly committed to open trade and market-oriented policies it will need to make rolling back Chinese mercantilism a top goal, rather than expanding their influence and letting the mercantilist fox in the free-traders’ hen house.

In written testimony to the United States International Trade Commission, Stephen Ezell emphasized the importance of issues regarding digital trade in the global economy. Digital trade based on information and communications technologies (ICTs) matters because ICTs are the global economy’s strongest driver of productivity, innovation, and growth. For instance, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the Internet alone accounted for 21 percent of the aggregate GDP growth across thirteen of the world’s largest economies from 2006 to 2011, while the World Bank estimates that ICTs accounted for one-quarter of GDP growth in many developing countries during the first decade of the 21st century. Going forward, a March 2013 study by Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy estimates that, by 2025, half of all value in the global economy will be created digitally. This growing digitalization of the global economy is reflected in the expected quintupling of global Internet traffic between 2011 and 2015 and the approximate 50 percent growth in cross-border trade in data annually. Therefore, ensuring the uninhibited flow of information, data, and ICT products and services across borders has become vital both to realizing a robust global economy and healthy national economies.

An EU-US FTA would signal to the world the seriousness with which both parties take true free trade, and that more than anything else would animate the global dialogue in favor or more serious multilateral trade liberalization.

To be clear, a strong, growing, and collaborative trade relationship between the United States and India is in both parties’ best interests. But India’s recent trade policies are placing that relationship in jeopardy. The United States should not sit idly by as the Indian government enacts regulations that harm American industry and jobs. Strong leadership will be needed from both sides to ensure a continued constructive and robust trade relationship persists between the two countries.

Many Asia-based nations have made progress on strengthening the rights of intellectual property creators, but more work needs to be done. U.S. negotiators should ensure that strong IP protections are a necessary prerequisite to any TPP agreement. In addition, these measures need to focus on both traditional and next generation IP. This includes strong prohibitions against widespread music and movie piracy, as well as creating strong protections for emerging industries such as a 12-year data protection period for biologic medicines. Singapore provides a persuasive model for a strong system of intellectual property rights. The TPP negotiators need only to look around to see the results.